Thursday, April 19, 2007

Sellafield scandal revisited

I'm not sure if this still counts as a scoop, especially as it goes back 21 years to when I was a whipper-snapper news editor at New Scientist. But here goes.

These past couple of days, the British press has been full of scandal about how, between about 1960 and 1990, government scientists regularly took samples of tissue from deceased former workers from the Sellafield nuclear reprocessing plant, to test for their exposure to plutonium and other radioactive nasties. The tissue, it is claimed, was taken without the consent of relatives.

The story rang a bell. I was sure I had written about this before. It took me 24 hours to track down the clipping, because it pre-dated anything on the New Scientist electronic archive. But here it is: New Scientist, 14 August 1986, p.11.

"Massive plutonium levels found in Cumbrian corpses," screamed the headline. We were a bit more tabloid in those days. "Autopsies on the bodies of typical former workers at the Sellafield nuclear plant have revealed concentrations of plutonium hundreds, and in one case thousands, of times higher than in the general population," I exclusively revealed.

Well, slightly exclusively. I had actually found the data in the bulletin of the National Radiological Protection Board, which landed on my desk every month. The work was carried out by Don Popplewell, a researcher from the NRPB. The story mentioned that these high plutonium levels were mostly in lung tissue and lymph nodes connected to the lungs - evidence of inhalation.

Most pertinently, for the current row, my story continued:

"Popplewell reports 'legal difficulties in obtaining autopsy material'. In fact, it is strictly illegal to examine autopsy tissue except to ascertain the cause of death. In the past some coroners have turned a blind eye to the practice, but there is increasing concern over the ethical issues among pathologists, and this is severely hampering Popplewell's work. The NRPB has approached the [government] to see what can be done."

I see the government has launched an inquiry into the Sellafield body parts scandal. It goes without saying that if the government doesn't keep copies of New Scientist as far back as 1986, I can supply them with an original copy of the full article. Though I don't guarantee still to have notes of my interview with Dr Popplewell, including his apparent admission of conducting illegal research.

Finally, I notice that none of the press reports so far have mentioned this business of finding plutonium levels hundreds, nay thousands, of times higher than normal. Come on guys, do keep up.Fred Pearce, New Scientist consultant.

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